Right after you get engaged, it’s easy to let your happiness run away with you, and to make choices that you don’t think through. These choices can come back to haunt you.
In the hustle and bustle of wedding planning, work and household chores, most brides forget to relax before the big day. They take lots of new responsibilities, spend too much time on a wedding planning, and overshare on social media.
Don’t be one of them. Here are 10 things that you shouldn’t do after you get engaged.
1. Anything that adds to your responsibilities
Whether it’s joining a class or adopting a pet, the months before the wedding aren’t the right time for new responsibilities. If it’s a pet, you may have no choice but to neglect it.
If it’s another responsibility, you won’t be able to do it justice. Whatever new you would like to take on, it should probably wait until after the honeymoon.
2. Anything that changes your life
For most people life changes such as finding a new job or moving to a new home tend to be stressful experiences. If you can manage it, it’s a good idea to avoid taking on any of these huge changes in the year before your wedding. If it’s moving to a new house, ask your parents to help you.
If you want to change or boost your career, think about it carefully. You should keep your stress levels under control to look beautiful and happy on your big day.
3. Forget to buy insurance for the ring
Wedding rings are expensive and also easy to lose. Heading to an insurance site, then, should be the first order of business when you get engaged. Unfortunately, many couples forget about insurance for their wedding rings because they simply don’t know that they should do it.
4. Plan an expensive vacation
Unless it’s for your bachelorette trip, an expensive vacation in the year before your wedding will usually drain too much of your savings. Unless you have deep pockets, you’ll need all the money you can put by, just for the wedding.
It’s better to avoid traveling right before your wedding day. This way, you will have more cash for your honeymoon.
5. Continue looking at wedding stuff longer than you have to
You do need to look on Pinterest and in bridal magazines for the best styles, designs and ideas for months before you make your choices. Once you make up your mind, though, you should consider giving up the search. It’s easy to descend into obsessive second-guessing when you keep looking.
More: 10 Wedding Items Worth Splurging On
6. Show undue haste updating your status on social media
It’s far easier to update your status on Facebook than it is to call all your best pals with news of your engagement. If your friends see it on Facebook before they hear the news from you, though, there could be hurt feelings to deal with.
7. Overshare on social media
There are two problems with sharing all the details of your wedding with everyone on Facebook. First, it could make friends who are not invited feel bad.
Then, you could also have a problem with opportunistic thieves. If burglars learn what your home will be unattended on a given day, they could decide to use the information.
8. Ask your bridesmaids for advice on the wedding dress
You will need your bridesmaids to work closely with you through the wedding ceremony. The partnership won’t feel good if there is any resentment in the air. If you ask for their advice or opinion but decide against taking it, you could cause hurt feelings.
9. Procrastinating
Whether it’s deciding on your choice of wedding music or writing your vows, it’s easy to put off important little responsibilities. When you’re working hard anyway, you won’t even feel guilty about procrastinating.
You can’t have a wedding without music or beautiful vows, though. It can be seriously disruptive to put anything off, at all.
10. Let the pressure take away from your enjoyment
While it’s important to take care of all your responsibilities, you need to attend to them without worrying too much about them. If choosing among different wedding dress styles, wedding venues or menu items seems stressful, it can often be far better to run with any one of your top choices, rather than to agonize endlessly over finding the very best one. The incorrect choices are usually nearly as good as the right ones, after all.
More: 11 Ways to Plan a Super-Fast Wedding
Finally, it’s important to realize that being engaged isn’t the same thing as being married. It’s always possible to break off an engagement even minutes before you get married.
You don’t want to do anything before the wedding, then, that would make it difficult to change your mind. For instance, you don’t want to buy a house or a car together. If you need to break up before the wedding, these joint commitments can make it difficult.
